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“But what if he’s even more off his rocker than we think?” she argued.
“Then you come and live with the two of us,” Jesse said. “Then you’re away from the kids but not all alone. You’d have me and Anthony to look after you.”
“I’m not… You’re about to get…” Cadence spun around to face the rest of the room, staying in my arms, though. “The last thing the two of you need is a third wheel.”
“Oh, hush now,” he replied.
Sara plopped down on the arm of Jonny’s recliner, rolling her eyes. “So you forget all the crazy ideas in your head about protecting everyone else and stay put. The cops are going to arrest him. One of these days—and probably soon—he’s going to do something dumb enough that he’ll get caught, and they’ll throw his ass in jail—”
“Mommy said ass!” Connor shouted.
“—and then they’ll deport him. You can be done with him for good.” Sara finished it without even paying her son’s outburst any attention.
“Not for good, though. What if he goes after Mom? Or Chloe or Corinne? He can find all of them easily enough and torment them to get to me.”
“You can’t protect the whole world, Cadence,” Jonny said. “And who says getting away from us will be enough to make him leave us alone? If he’d go after Mom, what’s to say he wouldn’t try to attack someone you care about here, whether you’re around or not?”
“Would you stop being reasonable?” she said, throwing up her hands. I rubbed her arms, trying to calm her down, but she was so worked up I doubted it would help much, if at all. She leaned back into me, though. “Everyone needs to stop making sense, because Guy doesn’t. He just doesn’t make any sense at all. He’s gone off the deep end, and I’m trying to be sure if he’s going to hurt anyone, it’ll be me and not one of you. Because I can’t handle that.” She shook her head adamantly. “I can’t. If he did anything to—”
“Then come and stay with me,” I said, cutting her off before she went any further into panic mode.
She went completely still against me. Silent.
Well, fuck. We’d gone straight from everything progressing nicely to now she might want to run away. I should’ve eased her into the idea instead of tossing it out there like I had, but it was too late to take it back.
Now I had to pick up the pieces.
STAY WITH LEVI? Was that honestly what he’d just suggested?
I glanced at Cam, who raised a brow.
Maybe I’d misheard him. Because if Levi actually had suggested I move in with him, surely Cam would be shouting threats at him or something similar, but instead he was looking expectantly at me.
Levi had stopped rubbing my arms, and he’d gone kind of rigid after asking me. So maybe I’d heard him right, after all.
“You don’t have to go live with him if that’s not what you want,” Sara rushed to say, after a prolonged silence. “But I don’t think anyone in this room is going to sit back and tell you we’re fine with you not staying with someone. You can stay here. You can go live with Anthony and Jesse. You can move into Levi’s apartment. Hell, I think half the other wives and girlfriends with the team would invite you to come live with them if it comes down to it. But you can’t go off somewhere all by yourself with no one else around. Not gonna happen.”
“I’ve got a guest room at my place,” Levi murmured in my ear. “I’m not suggesting… I mean, only if that’s…” He sighed. “This is not easy to talk about with your brother glaring at me.”
I nodded and reached for his hand. “Come with me.” Then I led him up the stairs, away from the insanity that had started the moment he and Cam had returned from their road trip.
“What the hell do you think—”
“We need to talk in private, Cam,” I said, cutting my brother off and not slowing down at all. “Ten minutes. We’ll be back.”
“If she goes to live with him, they’ll be alone a lot of the time, you know,” Sara admonished him.
“Not in my house,” Cam grumbled.
When we got to my room, I closed the door behind us and took a seat on the edge of the bed.
Levi stood there looking uncomfortable as all get out, shifting from foot to foot.
I patted a spot on the bed beside me. “Sit down.”
He shook his head. “I just don’t want you to think this is about me trying to rush you,” he said, staying put. “I’ve got a guest room. You could have your own space. Bathroom. Privacy. I’m—I’m not trying to get you in my bed.”
“I never thought you were.”
